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Edward Fudge

THE POINT OF HELL

There is considerable discussion these days about the nature of hell. Indeed, I have done my share to stir this discussion and also to participate in it. Does Scripture really teach that God, who "so loved the world" and who does not wish for anyone to perish, will preserve alive forever everyone who fails to trust in Jesus (including those who never heard of him) so that he can torture them in fire throughout eternity without end? Or does the Bible actually teach that those who knowingly and persistently reject God the only source of life will finally find themselves in hell, where they will disintegrate into nothingness while suffering whatever pain perfect justice requires in each individual case? Is there any basis for thinking that hell will involve a pain that purges, so  that all who go there will finally be purified by fire as it were and eventually join God in eternal life and joy?

Although I grew up with the first view mentioned above, a year-long exhaustive study of the whole Bible and 2,000 years of church history led me to the second view just described. I have recorded in detail the biblical and historical evidence that caused my own mind change in The Fire That Consumes, a 500-page book with 1,600 footnotes that was a selection of Evangelical Book Club and that is now popping up in the bibliographies of Bible dictionaries, religious encyclopedias and theology textbooks. In Two View of Hell, I summarize the evidence in less detail and respond to my co-author's arguments for the traditional view of unending conscious torment. You can learn more about both books here.

But there are practical questions we all need to ask, whatever we think hell will be like. What is the point of hell anyway? Whom does Jesus warn about it? What evils elicit his mention of it? Does Jesus, like many preachers and professing Christians today, thunder hell-fire warnings to unchurched sinners: to prostitutes, drunkards and homosexuals? Does he use hell to spur conversions and to bring people to faith? The answers to these questions might surprise us -- and teach us something important as well. Jesus specifically mentions hell (gehenna) just 11 times in the Gospels. You will find his statements at Matthew 5:22; 5:29-30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47 and Luke 12:5.

When we read everything in the Gospels that Jesus said about hell, we find him speaking twice to the Pharisees, warning these rigid and self-righteous morality policemen that God is unhappy with what their teaching turns their converts into and with the hypocrisy of their external-only religion (Matt. 23:15, 33). Everything else Jesus says about hell is directed to his own disciples. Twice he is encouraging them not to be afraid of those who might oppose them but to be afraid of God who can destroy the whole person in hell (Matt. 10:28; Luke 12:5). Every other time Jesus mentions hell he is warning his own followers not to mistreat or misuse vulnerable people, whether women (Matt. 5:29-30), "little ones" (Matt. 18:9; Mark 9:43, 45, 47) or anyone with whom one might be angry (Matt. 5:22). What if we used hell the way Jesus did? Would that change the way we use it, whatever we think it will actually be like? Would it change the way we ourselves live and treat others?

For more on final punishment, click here.